


Ghost Story

by wickedthoughts



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Blood, Bruises, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Dehumanization, Dissociation, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Minor Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Not Really Character Death, Out of Body Experiences, Self-Harm, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 14:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12559568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedthoughts/pseuds/wickedthoughts
Summary: There's an ancient story of a warrior who refused to let his beloved go until his beloved's ghost appeared to him in a dream and begged the warrior to lay him to rest.This is a similar story, except in this story both the warrior and his beloved are too stubborn to let go.





	Ghost Story

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _In the Iliad after Patroclus dies, Achilles can't cope with it and doesn't bury him until finally Patroclus appears to him in a dream and asks him to hold his funeral soon so that his soul can enter the land of the dead. Stucky AU for this. Do whatever you like with it._
> 
> Anonymous prompter, I took your fantastic prompt and ran very far with it. I reread the _Iliad_ for the first time in fifteen years, and there was so much delicious fodder for this story. I hope you enjoy.
> 
> This is pretty MCU canon-compliant up through the end of _Winter Soldier._

* * *

_"But what am I thinking of? Patroclus' body still lies by the ships, unmourned, unburied, Patroclus, whom I will never forget as long as I am among the living, until I rise no more; and even if in Hades the dead do not remember, even there I will remember my dear friend."_

Homer's Iliad, translated by Stanley Lombardo, Book 22, Lines 26-32

* * *

Six days they looked for the sergeant’s body.

Once their prisoner, the Hydra doctor, was flown out by the SSR, the men scoured the river valley for any trace of their friend. Falsworth made calculations as best he could for the speed and estimated location of the train when Barnes had fallen, but the variables were overwhelming. Still they trudged on, tracking, searching in the bitter cold. Their captain wouldn’t be dissuaded.

Snow fell on the second day, all-but guaranteeing the mission would be unsuccessful. It was getting dark, and inches of new snow blanketed the ground to conceal evidence. Captain Rogers would have known this, but he made no indication of stopping the search. He ordered they make camp for the night.

“He’s gone, Cap,” Dugan was the first to try. “I’m sorry.”

“Who has first watch?”

Rogers asked the unit, his voice cold. It was Morita’s turn for first watch, and he went to his post. The others looked at each other uncomfortably, but no one else said anything to the captain about the futility of the mission. Rogers had gotten permission from the SSR to search for three days. They could trek through the snow one more day, hoping for luck.

Captain Rogers seemed different on the third day. More hopeful. That night, after finding nothing, he said he would keep searching but he wouldn’t hold it against any of them if they left. Every man refused to give up.

“He brought us together at first, you know, in the factory,” Jones reminded Rogers. “He was good at getting people to band together.”

When Barnes had caught pneumonia two weeks into his captivity, Jones, Dugan, and Falsworth had done their best to hide his condition from the guards. When that had failed, when one of the guards had taken a cruel interest in beating and overworking the sergeant, they’d enlisted Dernier and Morita to help them arrange a fatal accident for that guard. They’d been disheartened when Barnes had been dragged away to isolation soon after, and they’d been reinvigorated when Captain America had come to rescue Barnes, saving them all in the process.

The snow stopped by the morning of the fourth day.

“I have to bring him back home,” Rogers’ commanding voice hitched as they broke camp. “I can’t leave him here to rot.”

“No,” Jones agreed with sympathy. “Let’s find him.”

Captain Rogers had been sobbing when Jones had found him in the decimated train car. Curled on the floor beside his shield, sobbing helplessly into his hands. None of the others had seen him like that. Jones had kept his secret.

On the fifth day, Dernier found a dark blue button hanging by a few threads from a thin tree branch. Hope swelled. They cleared snow and ice away, but didn’t find anything more.

“He picked up the shield.”

They sat by the fire on the fifth night, wondering if they would ever leave this valley. Wondering if their captain’s obsession would lead him to forsake everything else. They’d turned off their radios on the fourth day, after Rogers had told Agent Carter his plans for disobedience. She’d be able to stall the SSR, but not forever.

“Why did he do that? He wasn’t strong enough to handle it.”

Rogers stared into the depths of the fire, speaking as to himself. Falsworth was on watch, but nobody else was sleeping.

“I should’ve held onto it. I should’ve been faster. I should’ve- ”

He was crying softly, tears shining in the firelight.

“Steve,” Morita said, because they were off-mission, and rank was nothing in this moment. “You can’t change what happened. You can’t change what he did for you. You can only honor him for it.”

“He told us all about you, before we met you,” Dugan said. “He’d say you were a pain-in-the-ass, but talking about you always made him smile. He kept a little picture of you in his pocket.”

Rogers touched the breast pocket of his trench coat where he’d stored the button from Barnes’ jacket. He stood.

“One more day.”

He went into his tent, leaving the others around the fire.

“Hell-of-a-guy, Bucky,” Dugan went on for the rest of them. “Goin’ out on the town with him was great. Dames flocked to him like motorized freckles, but he never seemed interested. Musta had a-hell-of-a-girl waitin’ for him back home. Lucky for them, I was there to comfort them.”

Dugan grinned and tipped his hat while gazing skyward.

“Gonna miss you, pal.”

“He was a good man,” Morita agreed. “Never gave me shit about my heritage.”

“No, only about your breath,” Jones laughed. Morita made a face at him, but couldn’t hide his smile.

“Best marksman I’ve ever seen,” Dernier offered in his thick accent. “And always very patient with me. I will miss him, too.”

They went around for hours, sharing their stories and honoring their friend as they grieved. Jones went on watch halfway through, and Falsworth joined the vigil around the fire. They didn’t sleep much that night, but when the sun rose each man felt as if a burden had lifted from their hearts.

The sixth day proved unfruitful. Sunlight waned, and still Captain Rogers insisted on going onward. They searched until darkness fell. Rogers sank to his knees in the snow, head bowed and arms hanging listlessly at his sides. No one knew what to say. They stayed there for several minutes, the wind howling around them.

“Dugan, get communications up and running,” Rogers ordered flatly as he rose to his feet. “I’ll let them know we’re on our way to London. I’ll take full responsibility for the delay.”

Their protests fell on deaf ears. He reminded them that he was their captain, and when Dugan had finished restoring communications, Rogers spoke with Agent Carter in his tent. He took first watch that night, which stretched into the only watch as he insisted each man who came to relieve him should sleep.

They ascended the rocky walls of the valley the following morning. Captain Rogers went ahead, climbing without safety, setting up anchors and ropes. He climbed down to the bottom again and went up behind the rest of them. They made it out with no trouble. They hiked to flat ground and boarded the transport waiting for them.

In London, Rogers took the brunt of Colonel Phillips’ wrath. He told the others the new plan, made with the information Phillips had gotten from the Hydra doctor while they’d been in the valley.

“We’re going to destroy Hydra, once and for all,” Rogers said grimly. “We’re going to kill them all if we have to.”

There was something in Captain Roger’s voice. Something that said he wanted to have to. It was different from the way he’d spoken of their missions before. Captain Rogers had told them all he’d chosen them for this unit specifically because they lacked the bloodlust of some of the other soldiers. They were willing to kill if necessary, but the ending of a life had never been something in which to take joy.

“Who’s with me?”

They all were.

* * *

Bucky slept in the river valley.

He didn’t sleep at first. Once the shock of the fall and the surprise at his survival had passed, he stood and staggered to make shelter. His left arm was gone from above the elbow, but he couldn’t allow himself to think about that, about what it meant for the rest of his life, because in this moment all he could think about was surviving.

He ripped fabric and made a tourniquet. There was so much blood, but surprisingly little pain. He thought he must be too cold to feel the pain. He ate a portion of his emergency rations to keep up his strength.

How was he still alive?

Later. Think later, live now.

He couldn’t make a fire one-handed. He tried and tried, but the matches wouldn’t cooperate and the stones in the valley were wet with snow. He slumped, tears in his eyes from frustration, like a fucking child. He was letting Steve down. He’d already let Steve down.

Steve was coming for him. Steve never let him down.

He was losing consciousness. He couldn’t focus on staying awake, and his thoughts were hazy with cold and pain. There was so much blood.

Steve, he thought. Steve would find him.

He woke briefly when the snow fell. At first, it was a gentle caress on his face and his eyes fluttered open as he smiled with Steve’s name on his lips. The wind snatched the name away from him, and the snow came down harder. It took the remainder of his strength to duck his head into the collar of his jacket before he drifted away again.

He was staring down at himself. He was standing beside himself, staring down. He’d heard stories about that. Gabe had told him about men who’d come back from death reporting the same thing. So, he was dead. He felt horrible relief. Except-

Did the dead feel cold? Did they feel pain?

He felt both.

He tried to move his body, but he couldn’t. If it was breathing, he couldn’t tell. He could feel cold and pain, but he couldn’t touch the world around him. He tried to make a sound in his throat, but the wind overpowered him and he couldn’t hear if he’d been successful or not. The snow fell, not touching him, but making him so cold.

He waited with his body for a time, watching impotently as the snow covered him. Steve would never find him now.

What if he had to stay here with it? What if he had to wait and watch as his body decomposed into the earth? Would he feel that, too?

He had to do something besides wait. If he could leave the area, he would go find Steve. He would lead Steve here. He wasn’t completely useless.

The moment he decided to find Steve, he did. He was standing in the snow, staring at the white mound that hid his body, and then, with no warning, he was standing in a tent and staring at Steve. His captain was on hands-and-knees, weeping into the canvas floor, biting the knuckles of his left fist to keep his cries from carrying.

“Steve.”

He was audible. Visible, too, from the way Steve gaped up at him. Tears streamed down his cheeks and there was blood in his teeth. He’d bitten through to the bone of his hand.

“Bucky?”

Steve stood shakily, and there was so much Bucky wanted to say. He opened his mouth, and Steve dove forward to embrace him. He didn’t pass through him as Bucky had expected. Bucky wasn’t there anymore. He was back outside by his snow-covered body. He sighed with exasperation, and focused on finding Steve.

When he was back in the tent, Steve was standing where he’d been before.

“I’m dreaming,” he said dully. “You’re not here.”

“You’re not dreaming.”

“Are you a- a ghost?”

“Sure,” Bucky could feel his body calling out to him, pulling him away. He didn’t have much time here. “Let’s go with that.”

“I’m so sorry,” Steve’s words tripped over themselves as they rushed to leave his mouth. “God, I’m so fucking sorry, I- ”

“Steve, you have to find my body.”

“ -what happened to your arm?”

“Steve, shut up and listen to me. You have to find my body.”

Steve nodded, wide-eyed.

“Where is it- I mean, where are you?”

Bucky gave him as many landmarks as he could remember, but he knew they would be next-to useless with the heavy snow.

“Can you lead me there?”

“I can try,” Bucky started for the tent’s door.

“Can I touch you?”

Steve asked with quiet desperation behind him. Bucky couldn’t look at him.

“I don’t think so.”

He went through the fabric and found himself beside his body. Steve wasn’t with him.

Fuck, he thought, but he hadn’t meant to think it. He’d meant to scream it. He tried to say something else, anything. No words came out. He didn’t know what that meant. He tried to will himself back to Steve. He went nowhere.

The pain was lessening, but he was still so horribly cold.

He stayed there, waiting, watching. It was dark, then light, then dark again and no one found him. He wondered what it would be like, waiting here forever. He couldn’t think about that. He needed Steve to find him. He needed Steve to get him out of here. He focused all his energy on finding Steve.

When he found himself at Steve’s side, Steve was on watch. He sprang to his feet, putting out a hand as if to touch Bucky, then thought better of it.

“Where are you, Buck?”

“I’m not sure,” Bucky was afraid. “But I think I can lead you there.”

“My watch is over in less than ten. Can you wait with me?”

“Yeah.”

Bucky felt the pull creeping at his legs, drawing him away. He fought against it.

“Have you told any of the others?”

Steve shook his head.

“They already think I’m nuts. Hell, I probably am. Do you think Dernier will be able to see you when he comes to relieve me?”

“I hope so.”

“Me, too.”

It was why Steve wanted to wait. He wanted to prove to himself he wasn’t crazy. Bucky didn’t blame him, even as he fought the insistent tug crawling up his spine.

“I love you so much,” Steve said quietly. “I don’t think I can do this without you.”

“You can,” Bucky fought the pull as grief stabbed his heart. “You will. My stubborn little Stevie. Not so little now. You don’t need me.”

He tried to keep his voice light. He tried not to think about the absurdity of the situation. Think later, survive now-

Except, he was already dead, wasn’t he?

“We should have had more time,” Steve sounded angry now. “We should’ve- ”

“Hey, none of that,” Bucky heard his voice fading. “You’re gonna get my body home so I can have a proper burial. You’re gonna win this fucking War, and you’re gonna marry Peggy, and you’ll always know where to find me.”

He wanted to weep. Life wasn’t fair, he reminded himself, and he’d had a better shake than most, but still. He wanted more.

“Why’d you have to be the hero, huh?”

Steve’s anger focused on Bucky. The pull was at the nape of Bucky’s neck now, he couldn’t fight it much longer.

“That’s rich, comin’ from you, Captain America.”

“You couldn’t leave well enough alone, you had to pick the damn shield up and try and save me. I don’t need that anymore, and you weren’t strong enough! You weren’t, and now you’re- ”

He was back beside his body. The shroud of snow hid it completely, but he knew where it was. No one else would ever be able to find it, but he knew. He tried to go back to Steve, in his throes of fiery rage born of love. He tried, but he couldn’t. Steve was right, he wasn’t strong enough. Not then, not now. He’d be condemned to a half-death in this valley, probably until Judgment Day.

It was dark, then it was light. The snow had stopped by the time the sun had fully risen. He still felt cold, and he wondered if it would snow again. It might, it was late February. It would have been his birthday soon after. He’d almost made it to twenty-eight. That wasn’t so bad. In this War, he’d held kids only a little older than half that age as they’d died in agony. Brave little liars, each one reminding him of his Steve back home as he’d shut their eyes and mourned them.

He tried to get back to Steve. It was dark, and the stars twinkled overhead in the gash of the valley’s opening. It was beautiful here. There were worse places to be stuck for eternity. It was cold now, but spring was on the horizon. He could get used to the pain.

No, he needed to fight this. He needed to get back to Steve. He needed Steve to find him and put him to rest.

It was light again.

He thought about Steve. When that didn’t work, he tried the others. Gabe, Dum Dum, Jim, Jacques, Monty. He didn’t go to them, either. He thought about his mother, his father, his little sisters. He thought about his first girlfriend. He thought about his last girlfriend. He thought about the pier at Rockaway Beach, shivering in the night’s chill as he stood beside Steve and listened to the ocean, holding hands in the safety of the darkness.

He wasn’t with his body, but he wasn’t with Steve. He was in the darkness, and there was a leaping fire in front of him. Its glow didn’t touch him, and the four men sitting around it didn’t see him. Dum Dum was saying Bucky’s name, praising him. Dum Dum was tipping his hat to the sky in Bucky’s honor.

He felt himself flicker as something lifted. The pull to his body was lessening. The cold and pain were fading.

Jim said something about Bucky, then Jacques did, and then Gabe. Monty came to the fire and chimed in. Warmth rose inside Bucky’s chest. He thought he understood. He silently wished his friends the best in life.

He was in Steve’s tent. Steve was sitting on his sleeping bag, holding a button between his thumb and forefinger, staring at it in the lantern’s light. He stood when he saw Bucky appear.

“Bucky, where have you been? I thought- ”

“I got it all wrong,” Bucky interrupted him. “It’s not about the body, it’s- you have to let me go, Stevie.”

Steve’s face darkened.

“We’re so close to you, I know it. Look, Dernier found one of your buttons.”

He held out the button, as if Bucky would find it as precious as Steve did.

“Steve, listen to me,” Bucky was afraid of what he saw in Steve’s eyes. “You have to let me go.”

“You said that.”

Steve’s tone was mutinous, and Bucky was terrified. He’d given Steve a task, to find his body, and Steve had committed fully. This task was less to Steve’s liking.

“Look, if you find my body, that’s great,” he amended. “My family will appreciate it, it’ll give ‘em some closure. But that’s not what I need from you. I need you to let me go.”

Steve’s mouth twisted. Bucky felt the pull resurging, grabbing at him like ghostly hands, taking him back where he didn’t want to be.

“Don’t ask me to do that. I can’t.”

“Please.”

Bucky had always thought himself too proud to beg. He never had, not even in that Hydra laboratory, with that smarmy little doctor sticking needles into places needles shouldn’t be stuck.

“I want to go. Please, let me go.”

He fought the pull with all the strength he had left, but he knew he wouldn’t win.

“Don’t leave me,” Steve was begging, too. “I can’t do this without you.”

He reached out for Bucky with his left hand. There was a white ring of scar tissue on the back where he’d bitten himself. It would disappear quickly.

“Don’t!”

Bucky thought he would find himself standing in the snow that hid his body. Instead, Steve’s fingers brushed Bucky’s cheek, prickling over him like numb skin shivering back to life, and Bucky didn’t want to go anywhere.

“I love you, and you can do this,” he told Steve as his heart broke. “They need you more than I do, now. Finish this War. And let me go.”

Steve was weeping openly. He brought his right hand to the other side of Bucky’s face, and whatever Bucky’s apparition was made of hummed.

“I’m gonna go burn Hydra to the ground,” Steve’s rage was frightening. “I’m gonna look for you one more day. If I don’t find you, I’ll come back when I’m finished with them. I’ll be seeing you again, one way or another.”

There was a dark promise in the words that made Bucky despair. He wanted to yell at Steve, shake some sense into him. Not that it would work. His stubborn little idiot.

“No, Steve, please- ”

Steve’s lips brushed his. Warmth cascaded into Bucky, spreading from his mouth and vibrating through him as the pull took him. Almost immediately he was cold again, standing over his body in the dark. He tried to go back. He tried until the morning. Grey clouds obscured the sun, threatening more snow, but none fell.

He heard them, at the end of the day. They were behind some trees so he couldn’t see them, but he heard them. He tried to go to them. He tried to scream at the top of his lungs. He couldn’t do anything.

They made camp there that night. He tried to go to Steve. He couldn’t leave his body.

They left him the following morning. He watched Steve scaling the wall of rock, feeling pride and sadness. He watched them all climb out of the valley he couldn’t leave, and then he was alone with the cold and the pain, and he was terrified.

He couldn’t do anything but stay, waiting and watching. He hoped Steve would come back. He hoped he wouldn’t.

He waited so long that he lost track of the time. Day and night merged, and when his thoughts found him he felt as if he were waking from a deep sleep. He waited as the snow began to melt and he saw the blue of his jacket underneath the dwindling white. There was a button missing from the left side.

Spring turned to summer, but his body didn’t decay in the heat as it should have. Insects skittered over his flesh, but didn’t consume him. Summer turned to fall and he felt the chill biting him again. Winter came and he was blanketed with snow once more. He could do nothing but wait.

He waited until he forgot everything but the waiting.

* * *

<<There’s a pulse!>>

<<Impossible.>>

The soldier kneeling by the frozen body lifted its only arm, offering the wrist to his leader. After a moment, the leader took it, feeling out the proof of life.

<<Shit, you’re right. Let’s get him back to base.>>

The shade watched. All it could do. It watched as the body was loaded into a stretcher and carted away. It was forced to follow. It felt the cold, and the pain as the body was jostled. The warmer the body got, the more the stump of its arm bled a trail into the snow.

There was a tentacled skull on the base’s door. That meant something, the shade knew. Something bad. It should remember. Surely it hadn’t been that long-

Steve, he remembered. Steve was coming for him. Steve was going to destroy them all.

Who was Steve?

They did things to the body inside. The shade felt everything. They cut the thick blue fabric off the body’s torso. They poked and prodded. They recorded the results.

<<Pulse is steady, but there’s no brain activity.>>

<<Blood tests are similar to the prototype of Erskine’s serum.>>

<<He was out there for over a year, and there’s no signs of decay. No signs of aging.>>

They shocked the body. The shade would have screamed if it was able. They shocked the body until it sat up on the table, blinking empty eyes. The shade stared into them, not understanding. Something was wrong, but it didn’t know what. The body belonged to it, but not really. Not anymore. The shade should have abandoned it long ago, but it was bound to it.

<<Still no brain activity.>>

<<Give him one more.>>

Electricity surged into the body’s temples, and the shade was inside, behind the body’s eyes. Something was still wrong, but it didn’t know what.

<<There he is.>>

The body proved itself capable. Even one-armed, the room of doctors and scientists died easily. The body stood naked, spattered in gore. The shade felt the sticky sheen of it on the body’s skin, warmth instead of cold. It had wanted the body to kill them, and the body had.

Many deaths later, and they figured out they couldn’t control the body. They put it in a cold box until it stopped moving. The shade kept vigil, in the darkness behind the body’s eyes. It was used to the cold. It was used to the waiting.

It sometimes remembered it was waiting for something. Defiant blue eyes and hands that either could be unbearably gentle or breathtakingly violent. It sometimes remembered it was waiting for those hands to release it.

They took the body out of its box after a time. They’d found a way to control it. The body’s mouth screamed with the shade’s voice.

They gave the body a new arm made of silver metal. The shade wanted to wrap the new hand around one of their throats and crush it. The body obeyed. There was screaming, and pain, and then they put the body back in the cold. More waiting.

When that waiting ended, the body was dragged somewhere different. It was dropped in a chair and strapped down. After the screams died along with the hum of electricity, a man spoke to it. The shade understood the words, but not the meaning. Together, the words made no sense.

<<Are you ready to comply, soldier?>>

The body looked up at him. The shade stared at him from behind the body’s eyes. It opened its mouth.

<<I am ready to comply.>>

It was the truth, although the shade didn’t know why. The man put a gun in the body’s hand and told it where to point. Where to shoot. The body was still more than capable. It did what the shade wanted, and what the shade wanted was to obey.

It became a routine. The body would be thrown into its cold box and the shade would wait. The body would be pulled out, there would be pain, and then the shade would move the body where it needed to go until it had done what it needed to do. Then it was back to the cold and the waiting.

The shade knew what it was waiting for, but sometimes there was a nagging disquiet inside it. That there was something else it was waiting for, beyond the opportunity to obey. That there was someone on the edge of the body’s periphery that, if the shade could just open the body’s frozen eyelids and look, it would catch them. It would catch them, and it would know what it was really waiting for.

* * *

The helicarrier was crumbling around the body and its target was broken and bloody beneath its fist, but all the shade could hear were the target’s words. It understood the words, and their meaning. They made sense, and it was afraid. It didn’t want to obey anymore. It saved the target, and ran.

Steve. It thought it knew who Steve was now, but who was- ?

It waited in line for hours to get into the museum. A rainy day, but it was used to the cold and barely felt the misty droplets on the body’s skin. Dark smoke plumes from the destruction of the previous week were still visible on the horizon, and the surrounding crowd muttered ominously. The shade watched for potential threats among them, dipping the body’s face underneath the baseball cap.

Inside, the shade stared at the picture of the body’s face. Black and white, blown-up larger than life, and looking off into the distance with grim determination. The shade hated it. Not the face itself, but the picture of the face. Surely they could have chosen a better picture of him- of the body’s face.

“No, _your_ face.”

The body’s mouth whispered with the shade’s thoughts. The shade made its mouth close as it remembered Steve, yelling the body’s full name as it hit Steve over and over again to make him _stop._

The shade read the text of James Buchanan Barnes’ memorial. It remembered some of it. Hours later, when it was done contemplating the memorial, the shade moved the body to some of the other exhibits in the Captain America showcase. The shade stared at the replica of Barnes’ blue jacket adorning a mannequin. It had all its buttons. There was no mannequin for Steve, but the body walked around the other mannequins in their familiar clothes. There was a gigantic mural of their faces behind them. Steve was in the mural, front and center. Barnes was behind Steve’s left shoulder. The shade liked that picture better.

It remembered the red beret first. Falsworth. Gonna get us all killed with that “shoot me” sign on your head, Barnes had laughed. _He_ had laughed.

He remembered the men in the mural sitting around a fire, talking about him. Celebrating him while he watched and could do nothing. Letting him go. His lips curled into a smile. The sensation was foreign, but he liked it.

They should have had more time, but he’d wanted to go.

The shade was afraid. The body tensed.

“I shouldn’t be here,” it heard the mouth say. “I shouldn’t- ”

It looked up at Steve’s face in the mural, so self-assured in his rightness. The way he’d always been, even before he’d been given the size to back up his bravado and hadn’t needed Bucky anymore.

The shade was angry now.

“Why didn’t you let me go?”

The body had spoken too loudly this time. Stupid. The shade saw the furtive glances from around the room. The mothers pulling their children closer. Time to leave.

Back on the street, face tucked down into the collar of the stolen civilian jacket, and the shade remembered a time when it could find Steve just by thinking about him. The body walked down the sidewalk in the rain, and the shade tried to go to Steve. Memories were coming back faster. It remembered that it hadn’t alway worked, and it had only been after it had- no _he_ had _-_ fallen.

Died?

He thought about Steve. He thought about his mother, his father, and his little sisters. He thought about Gabe, Dum Dum, Jim, Jacques, and Monty. He thought about Peggy. He’d liked her, after he’d been man enough to swallow his jealousy and admit that she was better for Steve than he could ever be.

Grief stabbed at the shade’s heart. They were all dead, or close to it. All except Steve. The shade had kept its vigil over the body, waiting for Steve, but Steve had never come. Steve had been sleeping in the cold, too. Waiting.

He was angry again.

When the body brought him to Steve’s motel room, the shade watched through the grimy window. He watched Steve sharing food with someone. One of the other targets from before, the man with the wings. He felt a pang of guilt, remembering the body throwing that man over the edge, wanting him to die. He watched that man smile and say something that made Steve laugh. Steve’s face was battered and bruised. It was beautiful with laughter.

He waited hours. Dusk had fallen when the other man, Steve called him Sam, left the room to “rendezvous with Natasha.” The name of another of his targets, thankfully alive. In the years before, the body would never have been so sloppy. He ducked behind the outdoor staircase as Sam left, then resumed his post at the window.

Less than a minute after Sam had shut the door behind him, and Steve’s beautiful face crumpled. He sat on the end of one of the room’s twin beds and put his head in his hands. His shoulders shook. The shade remembered a ring of healing scar tissue on the back of Steve’s hand.

The metal arm had something inside it that could manipulate electromagnetic devices. The lock clicked open and he moved the body soundlessly into the room, shutting the door behind him. He saw files on the floor that he hadn’t been able to see from the window. Files with the body’s face. Files with _his_ face, and _his_ name. Steve looked up at him with streaming eyes.

“Bucky?”

The shade nodded the body’s head. Steve slowly rose to his feet, watching warily.

“This is my fault, isn’t it? I didn’t find your body, but _they_ did, and they- ”

“I waited for you.”

It wasn’t meant as an accusation, but Steve looked stricken.

“I’m sorry, I had to bring that plane down, and then- ”

“I know. I read about it at the museum.”

Steve looked the body over, wary and wistful.

“I didn’t tell anybody about seeing you, after. Sometimes I thought I’d made it up. I didn’t though, did I? That was real?”

The shade wanted to laugh. There had to be better authorities on memory and reality than _him._

“I think so.”

Steve nodded, gulping. His tears had dried.

“I’m sorry.”

The shade wondered if Steve would ever let him go. If not, as seemed likely from his recollections, he wondered if this body he was bound to would ever feel like his again.

“I told you to let me go.”

He wouldn’t beg this time.

“And I told you, I can’t.”

Steve took a step forward, surprisingly tentative. The shade watched the light shine off a purple-blue bruise around Steve’s eye. He’d done that to Steve.

“Do you- do you still want to go?”

Steve’s question took him by surprise. Wanting wasn’t something to which he’d given much thought.  He’d wanted to obey, until he hadn’t, but he knew they’d done something to him to _make_ him want it. The shade didn’t want anything. Pain, cold, waiting. That was all there was to life.

Was he alive?

“Can I touch you?”

The question stirred something in the body, like embers over coals. He wanted.

“Yes.”

He didn’t know which question he was answering at first, but Steve stepped carefully forward and stretched out his right hand to cup the body’s cheek. _His_ cheek. Warmth spread from his face, tingling through him, and he didn’t want to go anywhere.

“Bucky,” Steve said the name, his name, with such reverent love. “I need you. Maybe I could do this without you, but I don’t want to.”

Bucky closed his eyes and leaned into Steve’s hand. He didn’t remember how it had felt to be touched like this before, but it was intoxicating. His body sang, and he felt his blood running through his veins as his heart beat a tattoo behind his chest. He wasn’t a shade, he was _alive._

“Steve,” Bucky opened his eyes and smiled. Still foreign, but getting better. “My Stevie.”

Steve made a noise halfway between a moan and a sob. Bucky took him in his arms. His body was capable, and this he remembered. His lips found Steve’s. Like they’d never left that tent, the last time Bucky had seen Steve before he’d been consumed by the waiting. The anger he’d felt burned away, as did his resignation to his fate. He didn’t want to go anywhere. He wanted more.

He could have more.


End file.
